Because those vocalizations meant to express feelings of pain are learned social constructs. They don't just differ between languages but within them as well, the same way some people call it soda and others, pop. Babies don't do them. They just cry, the same in any language. My cousins somehow picked up that extreme pain can only be express by screaming "Owie zowie zoomba!" over and over at the top of your lungs. This comes in handy if your brother snaps you with a rubber band.

The list of European languages with similar bang/boom/pop/pow sounds to English is not impressive. English is derived from European languages (early German plus late Latin). Similarities in non-European languages do much more to support a theory of universal linguistic traits.

ZAZ:The list of European languages with similar bang/boom/pop/pow sounds to English is not impressive. English is derived from European languages (early German plus late Latin).

And French. Stephen Fry had an awesome BBC radio documentary about that in August, and another on the history and use of "fakr". Sadly they were only available at the time for a week each episode. But I believe the BBC packages them later (archived yet? Need to find out, I know...).

I read an interesting article abstract yesterday about the word "huh". Apparently this word appears in almost every language, with almost identical pronunciation, as a way of prompting someone to repeat themselves.

CreamFilling:Because those vocalizations meant to express feelings of pain are learned social constructs. They don't just differ between languages but within them as well, the same way some people call it soda and others, pop. Babies don't do them. They just cry, the same in any language. My cousins somehow picked up that extreme pain can only be express by screaming "Owie zowie zoomba!" over and over at the top of your lungs. This comes in handy if your brother snaps you with a rubber band.

JPINFV:CreamFilling: Because those vocalizations meant to express feelings of pain are learned social constructs. They don't just differ between languages but within them as well, the same way some people call it soda and others, pop. Babies don't do them. They just cry, the same in any language. My cousins somehow picked up that extreme pain can only be express by screaming "Owie zowie zoomba!" over and over at the top of your lungs. This comes in handy if your brother snaps you with a rubber band.